Atramentous Detritus Session 10
ruin.jpg|The Deathless Palace is attacked by The Lord of Blades and the Godblade. sub.PNG|The Godblade flies over Gloomwrought firing a hail of lightning. The tenth session of Atramentous Detritus Preceded by Atramentous Detritus Session 9 After defeating the Vecnites, Balaren declares that the rest of the masquerade be dedicated to honor the heroic deeds of the Crimson Sashes, and treasure is given to them as gifts of thanks. However, as the celebration continues, a massive explosion of lightning rocks the Deathless Palace and the adventurers see a gigantic airship called Godblade flying overhead, firing blasts of electricity down upon the city. Dispelling an illusion, The Lord of Blades appears at the masquerade and proclaims the destruction of the city. He then ignites his rocket boots and flies up to the Godblade, which then turns in the direction of the Plaza District. Feria sends Balaren to retrieve a chest from the burning palace. Giving the chest to the heroes, Feria sends the Sashes to Cauldron Isle to find Brun Arntsen, the captain of the Nobletide. The sashes rush across town to find Brun, a ghostly spirit atop a dilapidated ship. From the chest, Claudiu retrieves her heart, and when he returns it to the correct place in her chest the Nobletide begins to repair itself and rises out of the stormy sea to chase after the Godblade. From their elevated position on Nobletide the Sashes can see that the Godblade has been raining down a veritable storm of lightning from its Tesla coils to the city below, and is currently attacking the Plaza of Gargoyles. Brun flies them close enough for the party to leap over to the deck of the Godblade just as a smaller ship, the Boltblade, emerges from its prow. Istoniel single-handedly destroys one of the two Tesla coils firing lightning, and the party then attacks the ballistae. Claudiu also turns into mist and places the immovable rod into one of the engines, tearing the engine to shreds. Before long, the Baneblade crashes into the city below and the Godblade is on its last legs. With victory so close at hand, Claudiu, Darrak, and Bane want to crash the ship to end the warforged menace, but Nehem and Istoniel refuse, not wanting to risk hurting civilians below. The sashes briefly fight each other, but quickly return to their senses and decide to resume attacking the Godblade when it is safely over the harbor. Just as it is about to land in the water, the party unleashes, smashing the ship to pieces, however, as it sinks below the sea the sashes realize that any warforged who survived the crash slipped through their grasp yet again. Brun lands Nobletide at the Execution Dock, and she bids farewell to the Sashes as she slips into the realm of the dead. As her life force leaves Nobletide, it again falls into ruin and sinks into the Stormy Sea. Rushing to the Plaza of Gargoyles, the Sashes see that the fires are being put out by mages from the Deathless Watch. They then head to the Red Rake to try to find Mistress Ferranifer, and accidentally walk in on a room of vampires patrons drinking the blood from several dead bodies. Slowly backing away, the Sashes bump into Sanda covered in blood from a patron, and she agrees to inform the Sashes if she hears anything about Ferranifer's whereabouts. The party returns to the Deathless Palace for some much needed rest and use the exodus knife to carve themselves and Prince Rolan an extra-dimensional space. During Claudiu's turn on watch, he kidnaps the prince using the bag of holding and silently sneaks out of the palace. Out on the street, he gives some gold to a group of street urchins and tells them to inform the most secretive person they know to meet him at the Graveyard right away. As Claudiu enters the graveyard he spies Mistress Ferranifer waiting for him. He tells her to keep faith in himself and shows her the prince. Ferranifer is surprised, but immediately takes him to Fellwroth Ruin where Malachi D'Medani is meeting with a group of Vecnites. He is enraged at the mistress for bringing Claudiu, but his demeanor changes when Claudiu dumps the prince out at his feet. For his service D'Medani grants him a divine gift from Vecna, and then draws a dagger and stabs Rolan through the heart, killing him. Back at the palace, Nehem senses that the prince, who is his bonded charge, is in danger but because the power of the Shadowfell has made him uncaring, he thinks nothing of it. D'Medani is about to revel in his success when the prince suddenly stands up and escapes by teleporting off through a window. Claudiu asks for a shapechanger to replace the prince and meets up with a rakshasa from House Carradh who transforms into the prince and takes his place in the bag of holding. When the rest of the party awakens, Nehem tells them about the warning that he felt and Darrak becomes incredibly suspicious of Claudiu's actions, especially when he sees through the disguise of the rakshasa. However, Claudiu lies and puts forward the idea that the prince could have been switched with the rakshasa long before the heroes even arrived at the city. Claudiu kills the rakshasa before it can get him into any more suspicions, and Balaren arrives to tell the Sashes that he has deciphered part of the Vecnites knowledge on poisons, finding that a poison called "The Heart of Zehir" can be created by combining the Blood of Zehir with the "poisons of Antharosk and Zebukiel". Istoniel knows that Zebukiel was a Gray Dragon who defected from worship of Tiamat to side with Zehir in the Astral Sea. Nira then appears to tell the Sashes that the Raven's Erie has been taken over by the Venomers. At the temple, the Sashes find that the Eyrie has been shrouded in darkness and that a poisonous corruption hangs in the air. The Voice of Sarveth is baptizing civilians in a pool of liquid that gives them snake-like appearances and magically makes them worship Zehir. Darrak begins to challenge the Voice to combat when he sics two dragons on the sashes and teleports away. The dragons, a gray named Zebukiel and a green named Antharosk, assail the party. Zebukiel turns Nehem and Bane to stone and Antharosk nearly kills Claudiu and Istoniel. However, the party prevails and ends the battle with Zebukiel as their undead minion. Followed by Atramentous Detritus Session 11 Recording *Part 1 -Our heroes are rewarded for their heroic deeds with some glorious treasure. The Lord of Blades begins raining down lightning from his airship, and the Sashes are tasked with taking it down. *Part 2 -After a heated debate, the Sashes decide to wait to sink the airship until it has cleared the residential areas of the city to minimize casualties. And the ships are taken down. *Part 3 -The party takes a much-needed sleep while Claudiu sneaks out and does some evil crap. He manages to pull one over his compatriots, but they do figure out that a Rakshasa is impersonating Prince Rolan, and the whereabouts of the real prince are unknown. *Part 4 -Discovering that the Venomers are planning to create a potent poison from the poisons of two dragons, Antharosk and Zebukiel, the Sashes head to the Raven's Erie to find it profaned by the worshippers of Zehir. *Part 5 -The Sashes kill a couple dragons, and raise Zebu as an undead minion.